


your armour is just skin

by Eddaic



Category: Gintama
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Angst, PTSD, Sexual Content, mature themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 20:09:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10998096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eddaic/pseuds/Eddaic
Summary: Zura doesn’t protest. He only says, "We're not soldiers anymore.”





	your armour is just skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ginkitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginkitty/gifts).



**your armour is just skin**

Gintoki lifts his face off the floor to find a wig staring down at him. He blinks in the bleak hope that it will go away. To his misfortune, it doesn't, and says, "Why are you so undignified?"

Kagura sucks on her sukonbu. "Gin-chan is a real disgrace, ahuh."

"Shut up," grinds out Gintoki, picking himself up. He kicks the duffel bag that he had tripped over, ignores Zura's indignant protest, and says, "Why are you even here? Since when do you take  _day trips_? Aren't you too busy turning the Shinsengumi's toilet paper rolls upside down?" He, at least, has a respectable reason for being at the train station. Shinpachi had planned a visit to Kyoto with Otae, and Gintoki and Kagura had come to see them off.

Zura says, "Hagi," and Gintoki gets a sudden urge to punch himself. He scratches his cheek, trying to will the hot embarrassment away, while Kagura says, "Isn't that where your old school is?"

"What's left of it," replies Zura.

"Where's Elizabeth, anyway?" asks Gintoki gruffly.

"At home. He has a fever."

"That thing gets fevers?"

"It's not a thing, it's Elizabeth."

Kagura finishes her sukonbu, chucks the wrapper over her shoulder, and fishes a fresh one from her pocket. "Ne, Gin-chan, you should go with Zura, ahuh."

" _What_?" says Gintoki.

Even Zura looks uncomfortable. "Leader, I don't think Gintoki wants to - "

"I'm sick of his face," cuts in Kagura, unwrapping her sukonbu and sticking it in her mouth. "I want the house to myself, yup."

"Kagura," says Gintoki, "if this is about me not being able to afford premium-quality dog food for Sadaharu – "

"Gin-chan," Kagura continues nonchalantly, over Zura's concerned noises, "if you don't go with Zura on the train, I'll make you fly there." She lifts her umbrella and pats it on her shoulder, and, even with pickled seaweed dangling from her lips, somehow manages to have the air of an executioner brandishing an axe.

Gintoki says, "I think I have enough money on me for a ticket."

***

On the train Zura sits by the window with his hands in his lap and Gintoki sucks his way through a packet of sour gummy bears. For the whole journey, they don’t say a thing. Such an extended silence ought to be oppressive, but Zura has always lived inside his own head, and Gintoki rarely feels the need to talk in his presence. It’s an old routine, and it’s settled into their bones, into the crevices of their guts. Zura often keeps mum when he doesn’t want to, even when the words have sat so long in his mouth they’ve turned cold – but forcing him to speak is a brand of cruelty Gintoki has not acquired a taste for.

By the time they arrive at the graveyard, a mid-afternoon sun warms their backs and their brows are sticky with sweat. It's quiet but it's not silent - the turf jumps with buzzing insects. Zura goes off on his own, a bouquet of white flowers in his fist. Gintoki hangs around near the entrance and stares at the cloudless sky. He feels strangely relaxed, as if he’s in his futon and it’s raining outside. He doesn’t like the sensation. Death has always clung to him like a perfume he can’t wash off.

Gintoki makes himself take a deep breath. He leans against a gnarled tree and thinks of how he can skip buying eggs for this week and buy strawberry milk instead.

When Zura returns, he doesn't mention his grandmother (the only one, Gintoki knows, Zura remembers with any clarity). He says, "Well, let's go."

"Where are we going now?" asks Gintoki, falling in step beside him. "Not back to the inn. I'll die of boredom there, oi. It's bad enough having to share a room with you."

Zura glances at him, appearing cautious. Gintoki already knows what Zura is going to say. "I'd been planning to go alone," says Zura, "but if you want to join me..."

On a regular day, Gintoki swerves around the shadows that nip at his heels. But now there is no pitter-patter of blood, no singing of steel. For once he is nudged into gentle equanimity, and he finds himself agreeing. Zura does him the favour of not looking surprised.

What used to be Shouka Sonjuku lies in a wide field. A heavy scent of wild grass haunts the air and dandelion tufts drift along like the husks of fairies. The gates, rotting, still stand stubbornly, but the fence has been removed. Zura prowls around the structure, touching the gate with light fingers, like he wants to make sure the old, crimson lacquer they'd painted on it is authentic and not a later coat.

Gintoki goes up to a charred wood stump, and then scans the area, shading his eyes with his hand. This had probably been the room where the kids slept. He was always wedged between Zura and Takasugi, and would deliberately roll over them both. He did it to annoy Takasugi, and back then, he hadn't been sure why he did it to Zura. For the most part, Zura barely reacted, often just grunting and scooting away, or swatting at Gintoki's nose. Gintoki had to etch all the nuances of Zura’s facial expressions to memory to avoid a bony knee in the balls.

And on nights when crow feathers and stiff white bodies shouldered him out of sleep, he would creep across to Shouyou's room. It didn't matter if a sliver of light shone from beneath the door; that just meant Shouyou had fallen asleep while reading, or working, or...or whatever he did when he wasn't being Yoshida Shouyou the revolutionary teacher.

Gintoki would curl up next to the door and huddle Shouyou's sword with the affection of a child cradling a favourite toy. (There was comfort in the smell of its scabbard – leather and wind and dormant recklessness). He'd wake up back in the dormitory, at the edge of the pack. The sword would be against the wall, out of his reach.

"You were such a pain to sleep next to." Zura’s voice seems to come from a great distance, from the edge of the field. He steps next to Gintoki and tucks his hands in his sleeves.

Despite himself, Gintoki grins. "Didn't hear you complaining in the war."

Zura coughs, tilting his head forward so his hair slides to cover his cheek. It's not enough to hide the flush. "We're at the school," he says.

"So? I don't see any snot-nosed kiddies running around. If you do, maybe you need to get your brain checked out."

“Mm. Maybe I will,” says Zura with a wry smile.

Gintoki gives him a sharp look. It is unlike Zura to respond to any of Gintoki’s routine teasing – he usually opts to change the subject with a bizarre, brain-dead statement. Zura is gazing at the setting sun with an intent, somewhat lost look. (His default during the war, but uncommon these days – and in spite of Gintoki’s free-flowing abuses, he prefers Zura as he is in these times of relative peace). His mouth seems to move of its own will. “Do you come here often?”

There is a silence. Gintoki is about to repeat his question when Zura says, “I do.” It sounds like a confession.

Gintoki can see that Zura’s tensed up, his shoulders rigid, his forearms stiff beneath his sleeves. “Sometimes,” says Zura, “I feel I do nothing but remember. It’s like I’m living in memories over a decade old. I don’t care about anything in front of me.”

They could be discussing where to go for dinner. Gintoki lodges a finger in his nose, a tad too hard, so it comes away with a speck of blood. “What about the Jouishishi?”

Zura says absently, as if he’s talking to himself, “The future.” He kneels down to fondle a dandelion, seems to consider plucking it, and then lets go, wiping his hand on his kimono like there's dirt on his palm.

***

Back at the inn Gintoki lies on his bed, staring at the shattered light on the ceiling, while Zura rummages through his bag. It is odd, but the spring light makes him remember the quiet season during the war. They fought for over two years, but it didn’t feel like there were new winters – it felt like the same one kept coming back, haggard and baneful and desperate. Everything had a washed-out look, as if the colour had been leached from it. Even the blue of Sakamoto’s laughing eyes had bled out to leave them fog-grey.

"Oi,  _Gintoki_."

Gintoki starts, and turns to find Zura bare to the waist, sitting on his bed and scowling. In his hand are some cotton balls and a small bottle of what looks like medicine. "Quit daydreaming and help me out. There's a wound on my back and I can't reach it."

"What were you gonna do you if you’d travelled alone?" says Gintoki, walking over.

Zura doesn’t answer, just turns around. There's a thick gauze taped over his shoulder blade, and when Gintoki peels it off it reveals an ugly wound, as if a chunk of flesh had been blasted clean off. It’s closing up now, the edges puckered. "Shinsengumi," Zura says flatly, and somehow manages to also imply,  _Damn Bakufu dogs. They should just be wiped out._

Occasionally, Gintoki feels like half his life is spent feigning to the Shinsengumi that he doesn't know Zura, and feigning to Zura that he doesn't know the Shinsengumi. He's lost count of the number of times he's shoved Zura into his closet to save the stupid bastard from getting his throat slit.

Deciding it's not worth the effort to stress about it (since it will always be this way), he takes the medicine and cotton and knuckles down. Zura doesn't flinch, but takes deep, steady breaths.

After it's done Gintoki patches up the flesh, rests his hand on the pad gingerly. No matter how many years pass, fixing up Zura's wounds will always slot him back into their ill-equipped camps, their makeshift sickbeds in abandoned shrines. It’s like they’re still there, huddling in a copse of trees or a tiny, maggot-infested room, working with bloody strips of their kimono. “War kinda makes you feel like your body’s been given to you, like some weapon, and you’re just taking care of it, huh," he murmurs. "You’re not sleeping, you’re resting it. You’re not eating, you’re feeding it.”

It’s something Gintoki’s considered now and again, but Zura is the only person he will ever speak of it to (is the only person who, he has faith, will not use it against him).

Zura narrows his eyes. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah." Gintoki's fingers skim over Zura's shoulder, his clavicle. Hesitant. "I am."

Zura doesn’t protest. He only says, "We're not soldiers anymore.”

"…I know."

Zura's lips are soft and chapped. He smells of grass and the taintless rainwater you don't get in Edo. When they break apart they rest their foreheads together. "It's been a while," Gintoki whispers. Zura says nothing, just kisses him, slow and sweet but crude, like he hasn't done it in years. Gintoki tugs Zura by the obi onto his lap, wrapping a fist in that smooth hair.

When he starts to plant kisses down Zura's pale neck, the idiot, of  _course_ , has to say, "Ah, turn off the lights."

"Are you  _still_  hung up on that?" Gintoki grumbles. Nonetheless he gets up and flips the switches so the room is lit only by the slit of light through the curtains. Zura has always hated being looked at naked - no matter that Gintoki has stuck his hand down Zura's pants more times than he cares to count.

"Happy?" he huffs. He strips off his clothes and throws them onto the floor before crawling back on the bed and shoving Zura down on the mattress. He tries not to panic ( _shit, shit, his wound!_ ) when Zura hisses through his teeth. "You bastard, that  _hurt_ ," Zura grits, punching Gintoki's shoulder with his good arm.

"You okay?" says Gintoki, attempting to bar the guilt from his voice.

Zura shakes his head (apparently not in response to Gintoki's question), and pulls Gintoki down to press their mouths together, adding a vindictive little nip. Gintoki winces but accepts it grudgingly (he  _did_  deserve it), and counts the seconds till Zura unwinds beneath him like a piano wire. When he does, Gintoki licks into the hollow of his throat and then trails biting kisses down his chest.

"Those better not leave marks," warns Zura.

Gintoki pauses to fumble with Zura's obi, clicking his tongue when he finds how tightly it's knotted. "What do you care? They're below the collar."

"What if Elizabeth sees when I'm changing?"

" _Why would he see you_? Does he stand around staring while you get dressed? Don't answer that." The obi finally slides open and Gintoki is able to wriggle a hand between Zura's legs. Zura yelps and jerks his knees up, almost ramming one into Gintoki's chin. "Oi, watch it! Why are you so wound up? When did you last do this?"

"A samurai never speaks of such things," Zura says primly, moving to sit up so his back is against the wall.

Gintoki chooses not to reply to that. Instead he returns his attention to where it had been. Zura squirms before holding himself stiff, his jaw tense. At length he reaches forward, trailing callused fingers over Gintoki’s chest, pausing to tweak a nipple. Their eyes meet, and Zura’s lips quirk in a shy smile before he averts his gaze, and Gintoki purposefully ignores the stupid, coiling feeling in the pit of his belly.

It’s not too long before Zura’s breathing grows erratic and his eyes slip closed. As he finishes he bites his lower lip, his fist clenching around the sheets, and Gintoki thinks with something precariously close to fondness,  _Ah, he still doesn’t like making noise._

After Zura catches his breath, he gestures with a wave for Gintoki to lie down, and flops between his legs. Gintoki’s toes curl and he turns his head to the side, groaning. He foggily tries to recall his last lay. It could have been eight months or a year ago. It could have been a middle-aged woman or a skeezy dude at a cheap bar. And every time, for whatever reason, Gintoki would have to fight not to think of bright, honest eyes and charcoal hair.

When it’s over, Zura spits into his hand and retrieves some tissues from his bag to clean them off. Drowsiness weighs down Gintoki’s eyelids. On impulse he loops his arms around Zura, dropping down with a  _fwump_ , and they lie together with the sheets tangled at their feet. Zura briefly combs his fingers through Gintoki’s curls (Gintoki  _still_  has no idea why Zura likes to touch his coarse, hideous perm), before yawning and curling up like a dormouse. Gintoki is on the cusp of sleep when his stomach loudly reminds him that they haven’t eaten. “Yer payin’,” he slurs into Zura’s fringe.

“Then we’re having soba and you’re not touching that nasty red bean special.”

Gintoki is already out of bed and staggering to his bedside table. He thrashes into his trousers, finds his wallet, and begins counting his money.

“Oh no, I’m paying, let me treat you – ”

“Shut up, dumbass, Gin-san earns his red beans with his blood and sweat; he takes pride in it – ”

“Ah,” says Zura with exaggerated resignation, “then I suppose I have no choice but to let you treat.”

Gintoki calmly puts down his wallet before turning and mock-tackling Zura into the bed, mindful of the wound this time. There is more laughter than curses, and Gintoki presses kisses on Zura’ cheek, his mouth. Below him Zura is warm, and his muscles are firm beneath his scarred skin.

Zura cups the back of Gintoki’s head and says, “So…you’re paying, right?”

_-finis-_

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'The Whetting of Teeth' by Jamaal May.


End file.
